The Victim Mentality
Who’s in charge?
“You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.”
We’ve talked about responsibility and accountability, and how responsibility can have a sense of blame or fear attached to it.
Another frame for looking at responsibility is to see it as ownership. Taking or accepting responsibility can give us a sense of ownership, and therefore control or power. When we ascribe blame to others, it often comes from a place of self-preservation; to be safe from the consequences because whatever it was that happened, it wasn’t our responsibility.
However, in doing so we rob ourselves of the chance to control what happens to us. The more we blame, the more we give the power to people and systems around us to control our lives. This is what we call a victim mentality.
One thing to note about this is that we can hear the term victim mentality very heavily. There is some history of oppressed communities being accused of a victim mentality in order to suppress their ability to change their circumstances or invalidate their accounts of their experiences. We encourage you to receive the term lightly here, to consider it a concept as opposed to an accusation or a dismissal.
When we find ourselves in a victim mentality, it can become difficult to clearly assess where our responsibilities lie, and how we are contributing to the conditions around us. The reality is that, almost always there will be external forces - very rarely will you be solely responsible. But focusing on those external forces keeps us trapped in this mentality, and denies us the power to change our circumstances.
So, what does taking responsibility look like in action?
One case study is the work of The Hunger Project. This is a global nonprofit organization focused on ending world hunger by empowering individuals and communities in Africa, South Asia and Latin America to solve their own problems on a grassroots level. Many in these communities face unimaginable hardships, and the concept of instructing them to simply take responsibility for overcoming these challenges can sound ludicrous. Yet this is exactly what the Hunger Project does. In India, the Hunger Project has empowered women from communities across six states to develop their leadership skills and join local councils, to become meaningfully involved in local governance and ultimately lead the way in solving local issues. In doing so, these women become empowered to take responsibility, because there’s no longer an external force - in this case, an out-of-touch local councillor - to blame for the issues their communities are facing.
Thankfully many of us will be in less challenging situations, yet the principle still holds true. What human beings are capable of is astounding. Allowing others to become responsible for our lives diminishes our power.
As with many of the ideas we explore together, this is a practice that you can grow. Start as small as you like, but start today - think about ways in which you can take on more responsibility in your life, and see what that ownership does to your power moving forward.
Good luck with your exploration; we look forward to seeing you soon.
